What Are They Dying For?
It is a terrible thing to lose a son.
I pray that I will die before that happens to
me. But, since life is about loss and
how we deal with it, it is important to understand that some deaths are
better
than others. The quickest and most
painless is an explosion or a bullet to the head.
All other deaths are slow and pain full by
comparison. For those who are left
behind, reason gives way to emotion and any reaction should be expected.
What is truly sad though is the bizarre acting out by Cindy
Sheehan, triggered by the death of her son.
It was a good death, a quick death.
In ordinary circumstances I would be content to let Cindy wallow
in her
anger and make a sympathetic fool out of herself. She
has a right to that. But the codependent
behavior of the media and
the tremendous funding of this circus from the left require that I set
all of
these intellectually blind people free.
Casey Sheehan died fighting because he knew that our policy in Iraq
is not a choice between War and Peace.
For those of you who have read the children’s book Watership
Down, I would call to memory the rabbits of the small warren
located on a
farm. They did not want for food. It was left to them by the farmer. The rabbits were not calm or happy, however
they were content. They made their peace
with the devil. Their needs were met and
all they had to worry about was the wire snares left by the farmer. He would capture, kill, and eat them. They had what they considered to be an
acceptable arrangement because most of them would survive.
The citizens of this warren were cruelly captured and
killed
but they were in fact living under what some would call a state of
peace. Nothing could be farther from the
truth. Peace is the opposite of terror. Terror is not knowing from one minute to the
next want will befall you as you struggle to function knowing that each
day,
hour, or minute will be your last. This
is not peace. Those who argue to end war
in the interest of securing peace have never lived in terror. War is the only tool, the only procedure, the
only path between terror and peace.
Peace is a state of tranquility and security that comes from the
knowledge
that you are secure because you are living under the rule of law, law
that
exists to protect your life, liberty, and property, and knowing that no
person
or government can deny these things to you and go unpunished. We are not fighting for democracy; we are
fighting and dying in order that the people of Iraq
will have law.
The violence of terror requires the unfettered application
of violence toward the perpetrators. If
you would work for peace you must reject terror and walk the path of
war which
is the only path to peace.
Washington
knew it, Churchill knew it, Truman knew it, and now you know it.
Pat Bratton
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